Photographer Lynsey Addario: 'It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War'

Lynsey Addario is an American photojournalist based in London who photographs for The New York Times, National Geographic and Time Magazine.

Addario is the author of “It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War,” which has just been published by Penguin Press.

“It’s What I Do” follows a course unavoidable for Addario — from her first camera and the pictures it inspired to early years as a street photographer and the inspiration she found in the work of Sebastião Salgado. Photography becomes a way for her to travel with a purpose — a singular ambition that shapes and drives her.

In 2000, she traveled to Afghanistan to document life and oppression under the Taliban. She has since covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur, Congo and Libya, shooting features primarily focused on human rights issues and humanitarian crises across the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.

Addario was just finding her way as a photographer when Sept. 11 changed the world. One of the few photojournalists with experience in Afghanistan, she got the call to return and cover the American invasion.

She made a decision that she would often find herself making — not to stay home, not to lead a quiet or predictable existence, but to risk her life, to set out across the world, and to make a name for herself.

Addario has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009. She was part of he New York Times team that won the Pulitzer Prize that year for international reporting.

In January 2015, American Photo Magazine named Addario one of the top five photographers of the last 25 years to influence the way we see the world. She won the Overseas Press Club’s Olivier Rebbot Award for "Veiled Rebellion," documenting the plight of women in Afghanistan. In 2012, she was named by Newsweek magazine as one of "150 Fearless Women," and in 2010 she was named one of 20 women on Oprah Winfrey's Power List for her "Power of Bearing Witness."

See the Lynsey Addario interview by Yahoo News Global Anchor Katie Couric.

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